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Random Thoughts From An Unusual Company

How To Resist Punching Windows 2012 In Its Smug Face

Windows 2012 surely comes from the deranged mind of a resentful Microsoft employee who then got the usability team drunk before releasing it to market. Much of the horror of 2012 was fixed in R2 so why don’t I just use that? Well sadly Sametime 9 does not officially support R2 as a platform only 2012. I’ve done plenty of ST installs since Sametime 9 shipped last Sept but funnily enough all of them on Linux or Windows 2008 R2. So what’s the problem? Let’s go through each of my steps to build….

1. Having checked with IBM support if they’d support Windows 2012 R2 and got a reply that it hadn’t been QA’d but “should work” my customer wanted to try that. Fair enough. I sign on, find IE and start my downloads. Step 1 install DB2
….installer crash
…..repeat many times with different accounts security and options. Installer crash
….remove McAfee (how did that get in there) and try again. Installer crash

Note at this point it isn’t even attempting to install, the installer basically errors immediately. I find similar errors reported for Db2 9.7 back in Windows 2008 R2 early days so we open a PMR and IBM confirm unsupported platform (!)

Pause whilst 4 servers are rebuilt and software is downloaded again

2. Install DB2. Success! But hang on, every time I login there’s no system tray icon and a db2systray error. On digging it appears this is a conflict with Windows 2012 extended security – disable systray or add every user who logs in to either DB2ADMINS or DB2USERS group.

3. But where are the groups? For that I need server settings but that’s nowhere to be found. I tell a lie there’s a 1×1 pixel in the bottom right of the desktop (make sure the entire desktop can fit in your RDP window) hover EXACTLY there for a few seconds (it won’t be instant) and up comes that weird charms right hand side thing including Server Settings – go there and about 5 clicks later I find my way to users and groups..

4. Now test port 50000 is listening. Where’s my command prompt? Where’s my start bar? For that matter where’s my DB2 programs I just installed including my command window? Turns out Windows 2012 did away with all that pesky Start menu “things that aren’t Microsoft” options because why would you need those? (They brought it back in R2). O-Kay

..to call up Start menu press the Windows key. If I do that in my VM through which I have a VPN connection and RDP to the 2012 box – it does bring up the start menu, the start menu to my VM not the RDP box. This is apparently a known problem fixable by pressing Windows key+Alt+Backspace or on my Mac keyboard Cmd+CTRL+Function+back arrow and I have the Metro home screen. Similar to Windows 8 but much less useful since it has no apps listed or even the Command Prompt. Apparently to get that I have to type “run” (into nowhere – just type it) and now I get a line I can enter a search into to find an app

5. Oh and that charms menu we found earlier is the only chance you stand of finding a restart option. Except it’s called “Power” which is WAY more scary but if you go there you can choose restart

6. And don’t get me started on IE and it’s restrictions on concurrent downloads…

Now I have the hang of it it’s fine but how it ever shipped out the door without actually – you know – being tested by real admins beggars belief.

Frankly, I’m shocked… after seeing you speak several times at Lotusphere, I never got the impression of you being a violent person, but I’m also relieved to see that I’m not the only one driven to madness by this stuff.